JazzXman.7018

im not telling anyone what to run but l2live with the counters just like everyone else does. esp when you still have ways for counterplay. and ofc condi mes is way more an issue with pb/ mantra bc it has in some ways overperforming tools at hand (overladed axe 3 skill with double defensive+high pressure on laughable short cd, overly long 2 sec pistol stun with way to bad visible animation and too short casttime on a burstclass, broken signet of illsuion buffing instant shatters, esp distortion in cd too much, enable shatterspam and deletes lot of punishment for shatterwastes etc) preventing it from getting pressured by the war, also the confusion on top prevents counterplay in terms of counterpressure. aside from the fact that mending as insane strong heal esp bc of the condiremove (and is also taken esp to counter condis on war) with the only downside of an above average casttime get naturally countered by interupt focused instant cc. so there is a lot of things working together in disadvantage for the warrior when facing the condi rupt build. doent make pb/mantra broken, nor unhealthy nor no counterplay. its just one of the counters exist in the game. unlucky that one of the warriors main-answer to condis is exactly the one getting countered by pb/ mantra. and when i play power chrono i also dont run into forum and cry about condis just bc i didnt equip a single condi remove.

also warriors and necros have still enough ways to counterplay it (actually my necro didnt get his heal interupted by any condi mes no matter of the skill lvl of the mesmer, vs power mes its even easier since it is less carried by broken stuff and can be forced into using teleports/ rupts defensive way easier, so the combination condimes+pb/mantra is the main issue not pb/ mantra by itself). but yes warrior tries to counter condis with an insanely strong heal (low cd, high heal amount, big condi remove) with the only downside that it has an above average casttime, bc anet obviously wants this insane strong heal to be counterable also by hard lock down cc with own casttime when the opponent is fast or anticipates the heal well. so kitten happens, ofc it then gets countered by interupt focused short daze with no casttime. but we also dont delete thief just because it hardcounters power mesmer. some counters exist and you have to learn to live with that. and warrior still has more ways to play around pb/mantra than a power mes can play around a thief, just as warrior also has other tools he could use instead (other heal, stabi utility) to not be countered by pb/ mantra on condi mes that much anymore.

yes it is noticable, that those 1/4 cast skill and precast rupts (like hitting the 1/7 sec precast of the warrior shieldblock) happens more often the worse the mesmer player is and the more he is obviously just random spamming his instant rupt tools. ofc there are cases you can predict-rupt bc the target is so pressured and you know all he has left is a block and you just daze to prevent him from starting the block since you can finsih him in that short daze duration or you dotn want him to block the following burst combo. this is where the unfun "not just lucky but still lucky" precast rupts occur. but even most of them are just bad mesmers random spamming mantra and lucky hitting a precast.

refering to the human benchmark side i guess? yes true and that is pure reflex hitting a pre selected button just waiting for a screen turn into another colour (so you even know for100% what will happen and what you have to react to). there is no decision making delay (do i want to interrupt that skill in that moment of the fight?), no fingers find the right button delay, no waiting until you see what skill the enemy is even casting (noticing what animation is casted) etc etc etc. short dazes with barely on hit reward, which need an interrupt for bigger impact can and need to be instant in a fast paced game with gw2 average casttime of 3/4 to 1 secs. not to mention that everyone would have instant counters to prevent interrupt trait procs with instant dodge and instant no cooldown stow to 100%. so pure interupt tools related to traitbased interrupt gameplay need to be instant. simple. if you get interrupted (from a class which has trait-benefits from interupts) with a cc skill that has a reactive casttime/ animation than you rly should uninstall the game. the counterplay esp for the offensive rupts (which is mostly the healrupt) comes from the interrupt need what adds counterplay on hit reward skills dont have. also they need a target what other dmg or hard cc cast skills dont need. stabi/stealth adds counterplay a lot of on hit reward dmg castskills dont have etc etc. not every skill needs all existing types of counterplay. instant skills lose the stow ability (so can be baited way easier), esp MoD has the interrupt need what adds up in effort and skillrequirement compared to pure on hit reward of most castskills and lot of other instant skills (like shatters) have low on hit impact and have setup need which add the delay a casttime adds on castskills (class resources need to be build up, clones traveltime) and combo need with other skills (skills with casttime which then add the full tell to the burst combo) to balance them out. it is time the community rly understands basics like that! why instant skills are not per se bad (even can add a different type of skill cap/ ceiling, enable combo gameplay compared to simple chaincasting, enable skillful and reactive interupt gameplay what is a way more active type of traits than simple passive dmg multiplier, instant skills are even important for the fast paced action combat we love in gw2 and can be balanced and counterplayable when balanced correct in mechanics and power lvl). also the difference between lock down hard cc which prevents movement, dodge and skill-use with high on hit impact to hit follow up dmg (so way more offensive approach overall) which rly need to have a reactive casttime and a short daze which only has big value when interupting something (very low on hit reward), which doesnt prevent movement and dodge (the both most important, shortes cooldown defensive and most basic defensive tools in gw2) with mostly defensive approach (outside of healrupts and 1-2 other things) which can and need to be instant is so obvious that it is kinda shocking that ppl lit refuse to understand.

that is up to you ofc. i won't. you got my offer to do this in pms when you are rly interested in discussing the topic but i will not expand this thread with more wall of text makes most ppl just skip instead helping anyone. you can have the last word even tho i would have enough arguments to reply but it will never end (bc as mentioned it seems to be a cat and dog try to talk thing and i would need another wall of text to explain why you miss that your argument does prove my point even tho you dont get it 😉) so i think its the best to stop here and save both of us some time and a lot of ppl some skipping work. lets agree to disagree. enjoy your day ❤️

impressive "skipping of all what was written and cut it into an overshorten and with that wrong conclusion" -skill tho, each his own strength i guess 🙂

the cast should stay longer than the evade for the counterplay indeed. but the long traveltime in addition makes it hard to time it well for tactical plays with utilties since the move of the opponent you would want to react to with an ambush is mostly over when it hits. anyway i never said you complained about the traveltime i just agreed and specified that utilities usefulness also depend on that. point 1. and 2. are passing the topic i have again so i just dont comment on that. 3. p mirage has a way lower defensive dodge uptime than condi mirage bc the ambush design forces it way more into pure offensive dodging since the ambush rewards from sword and gs are way less impactful when they are only a passive side effect from pure defensive dodging since you want to combo with sword and gs ambushes into other shatter and weapons skills. so power mirage has a way lower defensive mc uptime (a way higher need to dodge pure offensive for enough impact and to optimize its impact out of the mirage mechanic) even with using the most offensive weapon mes has access to. that is exaclty the point. Your 2 other points are just claims without any explanations, while i already delivered a wall of text to explain why that is not correct. but for the power chrono vs power (ih!, pmirage without bih is already a different story just liek pchrono with duelling instead illsuion is a different story) mirage part: having barely any access to skillful, active and reactive defensive and being forced into mostly none reactive oneshot playstyle (incl way to high dmg on instant shatters) doesnt make it more skilled or more forgiving compared to pmirage in the sense that it allowes more mistakes. it just doesnt allow longer reactive fights but needs to get non reactive/ non interactive fast kills and then disengage. at a specific point active and reactive and skillful defense becomes too low, so that it doesnt increasing the skill cap/ ceiling. esp when in addtion the offensive (dmg and the non reactive way you have to apply the dmg) will get too high and non-interactive too. while chrono before they buffed lost time (and when played without mantra of pain or mirror images) and before the deletion of distortion was a nice and fun and very skillful spec to play (on some builds at least), it isnt anymore that much, esp with illusionline what lowers the skill ceiling/cap for chrono even more. is it squishy? yes, does it have counterplay in conquest? yes. less forgiving or higher skilled than p-ih-mirage? no. since you cant play it reactive, so all you need to do right is, to know when to inc and when to leave a fight to have max value by non reactive killing ppl and not getting focused. another more obvious example: playing without weapons is not a skill challenge, it makes winning a fight harder (impossible even, if not carried by some broken utilites or traits like if you remember on angz duel server core condi thief could win duels vs good player without weapons used by just dodging with the trait giving condis on dodge, using steal and 2 utilities, but that wasnt a skilled gameplay either). so wining a fight can get harder bc of lack of skillful active offensive and defensive outplay options but sure not more skillful since you delete most options for skillful plays without using weapons. and my point was exactly that power mirage enables a more reactive playstyle for offensive power builds that is near the top of the algebraic equation for the skill cap/ ceiling since it has a good amount of active defensive tools without being forced into too spammy or too passive sustain from either inspi or chaos while also no oneshot dmg on instant stuff is needed to get kills in an actual reactive and interactive fight. there is always a golden middle way (Gaussian bell curves even affecting each other again) to balance sustain (active and passive defensive stuff and active/ passive resustain, too much of active sustain/resustain and it becomes non reactive spammy,bunkery and player carry, just as too much passive facetank sustain/ resustain etc etc) and offensive abilities and utilities (reactivitiy, how hard it is to pull off/ how easy to land/ how much iq to outplay ppl, how much counterplay it has etc etc). most chrono builds are not near the max skill cap in neither defensive nor offensive gameplay, less near than pmirage, but ofc more near than most other classes meta builds.. and when you make a chrono build (liek the one i play) that is more near to the max skill cap (still less near than power ih mirage), then they are useless compared to what other classes can bring to the table (but that is a power mes problem in general tho, the general problem that gw2 doesnt rly reward high skill cap/ ceiling with higher impact). but as said i dont think this has big value in this thread anymore. so i would not mind to discuss it further with you in pms but i think we should stop it here. since it will just fill a thread ppl dont want to talk that hard and deep about mirage or chrono. and devs will just skip it anyway.

as said lets agree to disagree we somehow dont rly talk about the same stuff. its like you try to tell me that you never complained about traveltime while i just referred to why the overly long travel and casttime is not helpful for tactical plays since you mentioned yourself that the tactical usage of specific utilities would depend on that. so i just agreed to you here and specified. also you just restart and CLAIM that dmg will force offensive dodging while i EXPLAINED WHY dmg as main purpose doesnt require specific timing that would require offensive dodging since the dmg is in most situations also perfectly well (optimised) applied by a pure defensive dodge. "and sometimes you specifically want blind rather than evade." but the blind is locked behind the evade so you are forced to blow a dodge without the need to evade an attack to get access to a tactical timed blind. it doesnt make sense and it is so obvious that i rly wonder why you do not understand that. and for all the high iq outplay moves and combo potentials you seems to miss you can watch my guides and the interview i also have linked on my youtube channel, giving a great overview over the beauty of power ih mirage. doesnt make sense to spam this thread with even more wall of text when it is already explained with ingame examples in videos. but it feels like this is one of those cat tries to talk to dog discussions never will end or lead anywhere and it will just spam the thread too much to further discuss it (maybe my bad english is one reason for that dunno). we can continue in pm if you want but i think its all said from both of us that is necessary for other ppl to read and hopefully understand.

its not a virtuoso thread, its a thread talking about if virtuoso rly is a better pvp design. talking about classic shatter mesmer and its elite specs in comparision to this new recycler profession and why classic mes even with instant shatters has overall more counterplay and skill requirement and more healthy mechanics while the viruoso needs to be clunky as hell to not overperform in the songs part with a dumbed down setup blade mechanic that has way less counterplay than clones, is absolutely on topic and also helpful. also i agree that the mirage topic shouldnt take over too much, so i will just leave it here and agree to disagree with agri at this point.

the first stuff just past by far what i am talking about. the one part you are right is ineptitude, but for blind its rly only this one trait can add something for the blind. and for a strong dodge mechanic like mc that is not enough to force offesnive dodging. it would be ok on a normal dodge trait outside of mirage means on the normal dodge. what i said in general, that more passive dodge trait rewards can be balanced but they dont add enough incentive to dodge pure offensive on mirage what is essential to balance out the strong mc abilities. also the blind doesnt add combo potential like the daze does. and yes staff/scepter/axe also need some mechanic reworks in terms of casttime/ traveltime. see this copy pasta from my mesmer balance suggestion doc: Regarding condi ambushes and timing: An issue is cast and travel time. For greatsword its fast and an aoe beam, and for sword the utility can be managed via clone position. But for example for staff ambush the cast time plus travel time only further incentivises passive use/spam - because you cant plan to take momentary advantage of some window of opportunity with such a long wind up. So some QoL improvments in that regard would be good in addition. Also consider to rework scepter ambush to have less hits but each hit has more impact, so it doesnt overperform with core traits like Sharper Images and doesnt force overnerfs to this core trait anymore. edit: btw nope, even with ineptitude you just add dmg again, another main ambush purpose that doesnt rly require different from pure defensive dodging timing. so you just combine a more passive defensive blind with dmg spam instead adding utility that rly require tactical timing by pure offensive dodges. neither blind nor dmg from ineptitude brings that to the table. it would be a bit different story if ineptitude would add vuln instead direct dmg (confu) on blind, since then the vuln would provide combo-need and further actions from the mes to capitalize from the vuln instead just rar dmg, which as explained doesnt require enough specific timing by dodging pure offensive. aside from the fact that ineptitude would be totally broken on mirage if clone ambushes all apply a short blind but fully proc the trait each time. and you can see pretty clear how this would just be a pretty passive dodge blind-confu spam gameplay that doesnt reqire the mirage to dodge pure offensive for the blind/ dmg since neither of that can or need to be timed with dodges while no attack needs to be evaded.

1. exactly, now you explained why the one dodge nerf is bad and a dumb down and turns the whole ambush/ih/mc mechanic independent from it mechanical design into a pure passive side effect from pure defensive dodging 2. i just explained why blind just as alacrity are a big difference to something like a daze or vuln/ might stacks since blind doesnt have an offensive/ defensive hybrid nature. why would a mes dodge for the blind only, esp in a moment you have no attack to avoid to use your endurance dodge for? you can already just dodge the attack, so the mirage cannot rly reactively, tactically time the blind that is coming after the dodge from the own or clones ambushes. it is just a mostly passive extension of your dodge. nothing you need to rly use your dodge for offensive, means dodge without evading an attack just for the blind on the ambush itself.

you mean with the alacrity change? but it is not an utility that forces offensive dodging, alacrity is always good to have. doesnt need to be timed well in relation to what the enemy is doing or timed for offensive brust combos (so it also doesnt add the incentive to combo staff ambush with any other skill of the mesmers kit, it lit only adds some more boonspam to chaosmesmer). ofc aside from "not dodging pure offensive for alacrity only" while nothing is on cd. that is lit the only brainwork you have to do here. also alacrity didnt get shared to clone ambushes to replace the dmg there. and the bit of fury is totally overwhelmed by the current dmg still. you would never dodge pure offensive for the fury to prepare a burst combo (and again is useless on clone ambushes), esp on condi builds. here a copy pasta from my mesmer balance suggestion document about what kind of utility you want to add to ambushes, or to dodge traits in general: What kind of new condi ambushes would be good? The best way to make dodge-traits more active and make those traits add harder decision making and more tactical deepness and skill cap into dodge management is by avoiding pure defensive utilities/ boons (so no protection, blind for example)/ just as avoiding pure dmg/ or mainly dmg centered/ focused dodge trait rewards (as current condi ambushes are). So best are utilities with not only defensive but also offensive abilites (for ex. short daze). Or non-dmg utility-condis like vulnerability or boons like might which require further actions to capitalize from them and with that create the need to combo those dodge trait rewards with other skills like weapon- and f-skills (just as it is on mes gs ambushes already). Prot just as blind and just as pure dmg as dodge trait rewards do not rly add much incentive for active usage of the dodge trait by doding on purpose only for the dodge trait reward without the need to dodge an attack at that time. Those suboptimal/ more passive trait rewards ofc can be balanced just like passive dmg multiplier traits can be balanced but they dont rly add any skill ceiling/cap to the dodge management since they do not include any offensive uses you would need to time dodges offensive for specific outplays or offensive combos in specific moments (esp moments where you dont need to dodge an attack but active and tactical use your dodge offensive for outplays or combos with utilitybased ambushes). And since mirage cloak (mc) by itself is super strong, you wanna add harder decision making/ more tactical deepness/mechanical complexity (= higher skill cap) to the ambush/ ih dodge mechanic, and with that a mechanic- inherent higher cooldown for pure defensive mc-dodges from the NEED to dodge offensive for maximized value out of the ambush/ih mechanic as trade-off.

nah, the important point was the mechanical rework of condi/ hybrid ambushes (axe, staff scepter) from mainly dmg to mainly utility based ambushes, while also (here now for condi and power weapons) clone ambushes only keep the utility part of the mesmers own ambushes while having nearly zero dmg (no condi, no power dmg). just like sword and gs ambushes are designed mechanically (gs needs to lose a bit of clone ambush dmg). that is important bc the utility based ambushes are the ones losing a lot of value/ impact when only used as a more passive side effect from pure defensive dodging (means only dodging when you need to dodge an attack and get the ambush reward for free as a side effect). dmg as ambush rewards just dont need to be timed as well as utility ambushes, they have nearly max value as totally passive side effect from attack evasion and with that do not force the mirage into pure offensive dodging to maximise ambush rewards to do well timed outplays and offenive combos with other skills like shatters. also dmg on clone ambushes have another bad side effect of enabling the mirage to passively counterburst with clones while the mirage itself is stunned. what makes mc with the ability to dodge while being stunned even more broken. since it doesnt only add a defensive strength vs cc to the mirage (what is less of an issue for a squishy class like mes only based on active defensive tools with barely any facetank and resustain ability) but it also neutralize the offensive punishment for not being able to fight back during the cc. the clones will fight back during the mirage is stunned and will punish the opponent for landing a cc with counter condi spam. also there is a big difference between mc and old em with a stunbreak on dodge: while a stunbreak on dodge like old em was utterly and unbalanceable broken bc it neutralizes the cc rewards from the opponent to 100% and gave no incentive/ reward to the mirage to dodge the cc in the first place but only dodge the follow up and then counterburst while still dodging (means you cant even interrupt the mirages counterburst), mc in comparision by itself only adds a little skill floor reducing defensive plus and strength vs cc, while still keeping the mirage out of the fight and unable to fight back himself. it also disables the ability of the mirage to move and kite and leave danger zone, what is still a big punishment for a squishy class like mes with barely any resustain and facetank abilities. means mc doesnt completely neutralizing the cc reward for the opponent and it still rewards good players who manage to dodge the cc in the first place way more. that is an important difference and clone dmg works against that and turns mc more near to old em with the stunbreak on dodge, bc it enables passive clone counterburst while the mirage itself is stunned. so the correct ambush design (mesmer and clones ambushes) balance out mc by forcing pure offensive dodging (means "wasting" dodges when not in need to dodge an attack) for well timed utility ambush outplays and offensive combos + it adds a higher punishment for eating the cc and rewards good mirages enough to try to dodge the cc in the first place and punishes mirage for eating the cc bc its not a total cc neutralization. so overall more tactical and more active ambush gameplay with more punishment for mistakes vs cc = more skill requirement. while also reducing the defensive uptime for the mirage (when you need to use dodges pure offensive for ambush rewards to have enough impact then you have less dodges for defensive attack evasion or for dodging while being stunned), while also rewarding a mirage who is dodging the cc in the first place way more than a bad mirage who is facetanking cc like no tomorrow. a 2 dodge mirage WITH CORRECT AMBUSH DESIGN (=utility main purpose) has a way higher tactical deepness, is mechanically more complex and for that has higher skill requirement, while also having a lower defensive dodge uptime and more punishment for eating a cc than current one dodge mirage. so all that needs to be done is turning all the mostly dmg based ambush rewards into more utility based rewards. they skill can have dmg on the mesmers own ambush btu it shoudlnt be the main purpose of the ambush. and cloens ofc nearly zero dmg, only utility (so ih will be a pure and more active utility trait and not a passive dmg multiplier trait). the number tweaks then are only needed to make the whole ambush/ih/mc mechanic balanced (neither op nor up in its power/ dmg lvl). and power based ambushes will need number tweaks, just as condi ambushes. in what direction the numebr tweaks go (more or less dmg) is anets job to fine tune in the end. but for power ambushes like gs you already can say they need a little bit of direct dmg nerf when getting 2 dodges back. condi ambushes might even need still a buffs since the mechanical rework will already delete a lot of their dmg, on the other side they get more utility for it. so its hard to predict. anet needs to find out after they did the mechanical rework of the ambushes on axe, staff and scepter.

and sword 3 🙂 those 2 things are the only things you need to enable a braincell for to make cool plays with outside of simple chain casting with mostly passive/spammy blade generation. also the dagger 2 thing is more a restriction in usefulness while not rly adding skill requirement or an interesting interaction for the recycler (ähm virtuoso) and his opponent...

aside from the thing, that the complains about instant skills outside of stunbreaks being IN GENERAL bad/broken/ unhealthy/ toxic (NO MATTER of their balance and the mechanical context they are put into), is the most narrowed stuff i have heard so far and will not only kill mesmer/ skilled interrupt gameplay (and when they are done with mesmer they will look at thief, core guard, fa ele, etc etc., at what point you stand up against this nonsense bc it will affect your main class?) but also will destroy the fast action combat in gw2 at some point, we in the end all play the game for. for virtuoso its pretty obvious: this has overall less counterplay and a way lower skill requirement than classic mesmer (even tho it has casttime-songs instead instant shatters, casttime is simply not the only factor determines counterplay) and when they make changes to reduce the over-downgrade and clunkyness it will become broken pretty fast and with that will become even worse for the target of the virtuoso. and that even on a way lower skill requirement lvl so everyone can be carried by it then, the scourge 2.0 syndrome. the blade mechanic is so dumbed down, way less mechanical complex and with way lower tactical deepness and way lower counterplay compared to clones, it will either stay clunky as it is in terms of songs to compensate for the less counterplay in the setup part or it will be a broken ranged warrior/ ranger pew pew that can max range shot in his back with quickness carry and overall pretty passive/ spammy blade generation. actually power ih mirage is what they should have aimed for to be mesmer meta, its lit the highest skill cap/ceiling build, giving power mes some more tools for high iq outplays and combos and active surviving tools, so it doesnt need to be a meme stealthspam oneshot one trick pony (on chrono just with double burst and op lock down abilites from grav well) or mirror images instant burst stuff carried by too high dmg on instant shatters bc of too much passive dmg multiplier stacking possible and too many traits buffing instant shatters in cd or dmg (the basic shatter dmg and cooldowns are totally fine atm). while all those outplays and more in combos power ih mirage adds over core/ chrono have a good amount of fair counterplay and add mindgaming/ bait potential to the interactions and also balance out the strong mc abilities by forcing the mirage into blowing dodges pure offensive (means when not in need to dodge an attack, since the mainly utility based ambushes on sword/gs lose a lot of value when not well timed outside of a pure passive side effect from defensive dodging and when not combo-ed into offensive burst/ dmg moves with other shatter and weaponskills) for enough impact. mainly utility based ambushes reduce the defensive uptime and the use of the too strong mc abilities remarkable and also way more than the one dodge nerf, with way less negative side effects and no contradiction of mechanics and with adding skill requirement instead deleting it (what the one dodge dumb down does). even more sad, that it would actually not be that much more work to bring condi mirage in line to that mechanically, just with some condi ambush mechanic reworks, what also would delete the need to contradict and dumb down the whole mirage mechanic and the basic dodge management with the one dodge nonsense. condi mirage would need the mechanical rework+number tweaks on mesmers and clones ambushes and power mirage would only need some simple number tweaks (nerf of direct dmg on gs ambush, so spamming dodge+gs ambush is not rewarding enough, and no remarkable direct dmg, no condi no power dmg, only utility stuff on clone ambushes when getting 2 dodges back). in the end mirages biggest balance problems are not even in the mirage line (the overly strong mc abilities can be balanced out by correct ambush design as power ih mirage proves), they are in the broken synergy to also still broken and unhealthy designed low skill requirement core traitlines like chao and inspi (esp inspis signet invuln trait and signet of illusions are unhealthy also on core mes already). and when they finally fix all the bugging inspi traits for blades it will be exactly the same problem with virtuoso but here on top of the simplified and lower counterplay profession mechanic of the recycler (virtuoso).

hehe that was well said 🤣

big thx ❤️ im happy you took the time for such a long vid and give feedback and ofc even more happy you also like it \o/

haha yes i got that. produced nothing than aggression. and at some point i got heated too but ye... oooh can you pm some more details on your last part pls?

thx for the numbers (no irony). i didnt doubt your numberes in comparision tho, the crazy numberes call from me was linked towards what i consider a healthy and skillful amount of dmg for pvp. sry for the missunderstanding

i mean yes in comparision you are right with some of your points (your numbers are a bit crazy tho) but i never give balance suggestions to make mesmer (or any class) as braindead, easy to play and broken as other meta stuff (and some non meta stuff) in the game. not only is high dmg spam pretty unreactive spam at some point the dmg gets too high but you also enable an pretty obnoxious, broken and low skill requirement chaos inspi playtsyle that still has kill potential with it. i make balance suggestions for a highly skillbased, healthy and fair gamewide meta with reactive/ interactive fight-interactions with high iq outplay potential but also a fair amount of high iq counterplay and the least possible player carry by builds. and while i kept myself out of other classes channels to leave those to the main ppl who clearly have more clue about that class than i do, i always just hoped, that other ppl for their main classes have the same as least as possible biased toward classes/builds approach and do the same sugestions for a healthy, fair and skillful balance of the class they love. just as i hoped that devs have enough clue about the game and all classes to distinguish between healthy and as much as possible objective suggestions with the only bias towards high skill requirement and just selfish "dont nerf my class but delete the class i hate" suggestions. just as i hoped that devs know pvp and the classes they balance well enough and also have enough resources for fair and senseful balance steps (some/well most of hose hopes turned out to be pretty delusional from my side the last months)

power dom duelling ih mirage with portal, without signet of illusion or illu ambush power duelling pb chrono without mirror images and without mantra of pain domi illusion rupt condi mirage with portal no signet of illusion staff sage traveller allrounder mirage, the nade holo 2.0 build iboga and no axe core ranger also like dp no sa thief (daredevil or core) but cant rly play it with my meh connection, rip initiative power reaper support core guard (wvw) forgot engi: played several different selfmade builds in wvw with great fun

yep but bug report is planned for guide part 2. so i didnt mention until now

the only distort that is instant is one second. the other seconds have setup requirement to spawn clones and keep them alive until you have 3 of them up. then the distort also consumes all the setup resource as a trade off. the new block only gets affected by its dmg from blades. dmg that will make your block get interupted and neutralized by shocking aura stuff and reveales you. dmg that is so low that it harms you more than it helps. also a channeled block that will be completely neutralized by unblockable cc, what is deadly for a prof that shares mesmers basic squishyness. guard/warriors and even engis have other strengths and more facetank and resustain abilities to deal with that. mesmer doesnt, esp since the block has the additional downgrade of consuming prof resource (blades) for still low dmg harms you more than anything. f4 needs to be a shield block (bit like arcane shield from ele) during you can cast other stuff and that isnt completely gone when you get hit by unblockable cc. the distortion utility should be also a stunbreak (what isnt too much to ask when it has 60 secs cd) but can stay a channel then, esp since you can stow blade renewal and still keep the distortion up and only lose the remaining blade generation what is imo a fair trade. the problem is, when you do all the changes which make sense in terms of making this new prof playable and less clunky, it will end up to become the most broken thing on the planet with way less counterplay than classic mesmer (even tho it has no instant shatters) while now it is so easy to play and needs way less skill to be impactful with it that every newbie will be able to be carried by it. so its another scourge everyone can relog to in few days when it has a viable meta build. what is also what mesmer haters (the ones who are actually not in gold and lower div) wanted, a spec they can easy relog to when it is good, not a high iq high skill requirement class like classic mes with high iq utilties like portal, no one can simply relog to and your team has problems without access to a good mesmer main...

i mean yes it almost looks like they tried to make virtuoso to suffer from all known bugs in the game and make it as clunky as possible. making it all projectiles with targetneed (so you cant even manually aim into stealthed targets or precast and then about face retarget) and also add face your target requirement after we complained about mantra of distraction not hitting without reasons due to face your target nonsense that has like a 20 degree hitbox instead 180 degree, getting obstructed and no line of sighted for no reason by little uneven ground ect. we also can enjoy the miss miss miss and obstructed for no reason projectile bugs on moving targets on every single skill of that new profession. and ofc the only nice skill in the kit (sword3) has the sword ambush bug included as feature and even more also likes to bug and doesnt leap you forward but on spot sometimes (aside from the missing little icd that often makes you double click it so you get instantly backported without doing dmg).

even dagger has good dmg when you got used to it. the problem is more that you can simply side step the slow projectiles, so its not rly a range weapon what i actually like about it. and its main strength is, that you have a nearly instant low cd blade generation on dagger2. buffing its dmg would pretty fast make it obnoxious while not deleting its mechancial issues. the problem with dagger is, that it is just a pretty braindead spam weapon without any tactical deepness (thats like the whole profession more or less, just dmg spam from more or less range with a low iq blade setup mechanic that has way less tactical deepness but alos way less counterplay than clones), it has no defense and no utility, no mobility. if you just buff its dmg even more you get another ranger axe syndrom.